Books I Read (and Books I Didn't Finish) in 2025
31 Dec 2025 #booksYouTube changed how I read books.
One day, the YouTube algorithm showed me one video on reading one book per week.
That video made me read two books at once. Now I keep a book on my dinner table and another on the couch. Those are my reading spots after meals.
And binge-watching Ryan Holiday’s YouTube channel made me change my reading habits.
I went back to reading on paper and writing in margins. That used to feel like a capital sin.
With those two strategies, here are the books I read and one takeaway from each:
Books I finished
#1. Skip the Line by James Altucher: Forget about the 10,000 hours to become an expert. Instead of accumulating hours, run 10,000 experiments: quick actions that teach you something.
#2. Steal Like an Artist by Austen Kleon: Originality is overrated. Find who to copy. Then find what to copy. My favorite line: “Hands first, then computer.”
#3. Mini Book Model by Chris Stanley: In 2025, I redefined what a book is.
These days, the real challenge is to make people finish books. Social media has ruined our attention spans.
The solution? Write shorter books.
James Altucher planted a seed with his “10-paper book” challenge. Building on that idea, Chris’ book gave me frameworks to title, outline, and write “mini books.”
I’m following the mini book principles to write my next coding books.
#4. Writing to Think by William Zinsser. My favorite line: “Writing is learned mainly by imitation.” That felt like permission to explore and develop my own voice.
#5. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari. Making predictions is hard, especially about the future. With the uncertainty of what AI could bring, the sole skill to master is the ability to learn and adapt.
#6. Writing for Developers by Piotr Sarna and Cynthia Dunlop. My favorite line? You’re not writing enough. The book shared it for engineering blogging, but the advice applies everywhere. Write more!
Books I didn’t finish but I’m still reading
#7. Mastery by Robert Greene. Some masters knew their Life Task as children. Others discovered it through experimentation and exploration, at the intersection of fields.
#8. Glucose Revolution by Jessie Inchauspé. My sister picked up this one first. I started to apply some concepts to keep my glucose spikes under control. That’s my secret productivity hack to avoid the afternoon crash after lunch.